BREAKING: Person In Custody In Tyler Dasher’s Murder

AFFTON, Mo. (KMOX) — Prosecutors are questioning Tyler Dasher’s mother, Shelby Dasher after she was reportedly taken in to custody early this morning. Police have not formally charged her but say they are no longer looking for other suspects. 20-year-old Shelby Dasher is being held on a 24 hour hold on First Degree Murder charges. A news conference is expected for later today.

Early this morning police returned to young Tyler’s home in the 7700 block of Clevedon Avenue in Afton where they were seen leading a person out of the house, in handcuffs, a coat covering the identity of that person. However judging by the clothing the person is belived to be Shelby Dasher.

Tyler Dasher's home in the 7700 block of Clevedon Avenue in Afton . (KMOX/Brett Blume)

The alleged suspect was then taken to the location where the body of the child was found and then transported to the criminal justice center in Clayton.

Other than making the announcement that a suspect was in custody, police are not releasing any details. It’s believed investigators and the prosecuting attorney’s office are in the process of building a case against the suspect, making sure there are no holes in the case.

By way of background, the boy’s body was discovered Tuesday afternoon, just hours after he’d first been reported missing from his home in Affton.

Stay tuned to KMOX and www.kmox.com for further details in this case as they become available.

OUR EARLIER STORY:

A deceased child found in a wooded area near the St. Marcus Cemetery is that of Tyler Dasher.

He is the-13-month old, reported missing from his Affton home on Tuesday morning. The Medical Examiner confirmed the body’s identification on Tuesday night. A cause of death has not been determined and there is still no known motive for the apparent homicide.

At one time more than a hundred officers, including dogs and a helicopter, were involved in the investigation, which covered a square mile around the child’s home. The body was found near the River Des Peres, about 100 yards from the subdivision where he lived.

Police spokesman Rick Eckhard says the mother of missing Tyler Dasher put him to bed last night at about 10:30 p.m. in the 7700 block of Clevedon and when she went to wake him up Monday morning at about 11:30, he was gone.

Police conducted an exhaustive search of the neighborhood.

“During the neighborhood search, an individual told police they saw a man walking down the street carrying a child wrapped in a blue blanket.” said Eckhard .

About a half dozen people were questioned for hours, including Tyler’s mother, father, grandmother and neighbors.

“Rest assured, we won’t stop investigating this until we get to the bottom of it,” County Police Chief Tim Fitch declared.

“It’s really hard. I don’t know why something like this would even happen. I really don’t understand,”said Haley Cacciatore, who considers herself a cousin to Tyler’s mother Shelby. She and about a dozen others held vigil in the street, holding and hugging each other and battling waves of tears with each piece of news.

Detectives with dogs, meanwhile, sniffed for clues in the yards around them. Officers with flashlights worked well into the night, taking bags and boxes out of the family’s home.

The original call to police from the mother was that the child may have wandered out of the home, but Eckhard said after police looked at the home and the child’s crib they concluded that Tyler could not have walked away on his own.

Anyone with additional information should call the St. Louis County Police Department at 889 2341 or Crimestoppers at 866-371-TIPS.

“It says to me that it’s a pretty sick person,” Chief Fitch said of the tragedy. “Anybody that would take a child and leave a child in that condition in a wooded area like this needs to be dealt with severely by the criminal justice system.”

Hate to say it, Dede, but the mother is to blame. She viciously beat her child to death because he wouldn’t stop crying. Then she dumped his body in a nearby graveyard. At least he’ll get a proper burial on Monday. May his soul rest in peace!

my son is 18 months old and sleeps 11-13 hours however I am in his room checking on him every hour on the hour once it is 7 am. I never wake a peacefully sleeping child but I never “not” check on him either,

The mother put this little guy to bed at 10:30pm? (Who puts a baby to bed at that time – reguarly?) But – did not discover him missing until nearly 12 noon the next day? Who does this? We have three children – and even the most laid back kid, especially one in diapers, never, EVER went quiet for 13+ hours. As a parent – neither of us could’ve gone so many hour without noticing…something.
I do not want to jump to improper conclusions – but I am saying that even if this mother had nothing to do with this poor little guy’s disappearance, what parent goes nearly 14 hours – in the same house – and not get up to check on them? Who does this?

I can see how an exhausted parent (who probably never uses an alarm clock anymore because their kid is now their alarm clock) can sleep in. But there was also another adult in the house (her Mom). Did she also sleep in? Or did she go to work in the morning but not check on Tyler?

Stories like this just make me so sad that our world is so messed up. Who ever killed Tyler is a disgusting human being.

I would like to let everyone know that if one ever see’s someone walking at night with a small baby they should contact the police. most people will have their child in a pumpkin set. This is the second child that someone had seen a man walking with a child late at night and no one reported it. please lets try to be more observent.